What would you do if you found out that yours favorite comic book character did he come to life, along with all the villains he fought between paper and ink? Michael Smith becomes obsessed with it, looking for an answer as he tries to survive the attacks of the bad guys who parry him along the way: a search for truth (with Truth personified which, ironically, tries to annihilate it), the solution toEnigma which gives its name to the cartoon character that Michael has always loved since he was a kid, but which also serves as the title of the series created by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo.
Enigma in fact returns about thirty years after its first publication with Vertigo, in a ‘Final Edition for Panini Comics through a refined volume that contains numerous additional contents by the two authors. Since 1993, Michael Smith’s mission in search of truth is repeated: a search that, under the layers of the Fegredo’s nervous and frantic trait in drawing the disturbing and dreamlike “adventures” of Michael and Enigma, he reveals one self discovery, of our real identity that we try to repress, hide, suffocate because it scares us. The true enigma of each, told by Milligan and Fegredo: who do we pretend to be and who are we really?
Hunting for the Enigma
For as long as he can remember, Michael Smith has always had a rather mediocre life. She has a common job, a monotonous relationship (with set days for sex) and a childhood to forget. In the city, however, the murders by the Devourer of Brains they follow each other relentlessly and, in addition to terrorizing the population, they arouse Michael’s interest. In fact, he seems attracted to such events as he feels that they are somehow connected to strange dreams that he does every night: those concerning a masked man, Enigmathe protagonist of Michael’s favorite comics as a child.
When Michael comes face to face with the Brain Eater, a monstrous being whose real name is The headalso makes a close encounter with death and … with Enigma, in flesh and bone. His dreams and his childhood memories then they come to life and decides that the time has come to discover the truth about the disturbing events that are unfolding in his life. Who is actually Enigma? Why does a character from some old comics never come to an end now walk among men? And why did even the scariest criminals ever seen manifested with him? For Michael, however, another enigma stands out above all: who is he, really?
The Head, The Truth, the Envelope Girl and the Enigma
Enigma it is not a comic series of superheroes and supervillains. Of individuals with great powers who act for good and criminals who spread chaos. Far ahead of its timeis part of that group of precursors who, probably inspired by the post-Watchmen, have been able to exploit the cages of comics to embed stories in which the wearer of mask and costume hides a fallible and sometimes petty humanity. L’Enigma by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo, however, does even more: anticipates LGBTQ + comics by decadesthe search for oneself which also includes the discovery of one’s own sexual identity, the acceptance of what might be uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Collected in the single volume of the Definitive Edition of Panini Comics there is therefore a series that, disturbing, grotesque, ingenious, he is ahead of his time and speaks courageously to those who are looking for themselves in this uncertain world.
“Eccentric“, Is the first definition that comes to mind when reading for the first time Enigma. Bizarre, frightening in deformity of monsters representing and in their macabre actions, but sharp and bright in the meanings it contains. Among these, mainly, the true nature of the “enigma”. The real conundrum is not finding out what is happening in the world, but understand who we are: the fruit of abandonment, bad choices, painful pasts, or what we choose to be, accepting ourselves completely by including those aspects of ourselves that terrify us? There are obstacles to Michael Smith’s path in this mission grotesque but surprising characters, frightening but brilliant, which in their function of allegories to which they rise, in a certain sense help the protagonist to understand what (to him) is happening. The head (certainly the scariest and most aberrant of the beings represented) sucks up the brains of its victims through a sort of straw inserted into the nose. He appropriates their memories, their knowledge, their experiences and in this he seems to recall what Michael does: live “by proxy”, observe the lives of others to grasp their dynamics and compare them with their own flat existence. Not only that, but the direct encounter between Michael and La Testa serves as a “near-death” experience for him, determining the awareness of everything he wanted to be and do and of which, having reached the end, he finally becomes aware.
In their comic series, Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo outline another disturbing, but brilliantly conceived character: The trutha skeletal figure dressed in women’s underwear, almost a harlot who lures her unsuspecting patrons with the promise of a seductive truth, only to feed on their desperation in the face of extreme knowledge of themselves. She is the second entity that Michael faces in Enigmathe need to know, the need to understand one’s identity despite being dotted with shadows that we often pretend do not exist. The trio of villains as grotesque as they are brilliant is also made up of the Envelope girla female figure dressed like a letter envelope, who literally sends the men who slip into them through her cave three skirts, sending them to end up inert in remote places.
It seems that it represents almost the control of the woman over the man through seduction, from which Michael is not exempt due to his unsatisfactory relationship and that for the protagonist of Enigma he contains a further truth about himself, about what the female figure actually represents for him and about his own sexual identity. The “hero” Enigma (although he is not actually a hero) is the main entity in this path: mysterious, masked, wrapped in a cloak of fascinating secret, it is at the same time the mystery that haunts Michael And the answer to all puzzles that arose in its existence. A painful response, difficult to accept, but at the same time as necessary as a breath of air. It is therefore through the villains (difficult not to include Enigma among them) that this narrative takes on its connotations grotesque and disturbing but always bright, mature and intelligent, able to guide us through Michael Smith’s experiences in a path of knowledge that anticipates LGBTQ + comics by at least thirty years: wonderfully visionary.
The evolution of Duncan Fegredo: revelations and sketches
From the first plates up to about half the volume of this Definitive Edition of Enigmaone fact is evident: the nervous, agitated, chaotic trait by Duncan Fegredo fades as he continues in the narrative to make himself more precise, detailed, secure. The introduction written by Milligan and inserted in the new edition of the comic series contains a curious anecdote in this regard:
Once, at a panel at a comic convention the team of Enigma participated, I was asked a question about it and I came up with something on the fly. I said that the change in Duncan’s drawings had been a deliberate narrative gimmick. As Michael Smith became clearer who he was, with increased confidence in his own feelings and perceptions, the illustrations wanted to reflect this. That was a good answer (although not quite true). It made perfect sense.
In fact, initially it seems that Fegredo came from a long experience with the brushes and go back to using the chine after a long time it was a bit difficult: in short, he had to get carried away. The drawings of him, which in their chaos and their restlessness they manage to reflect chaos and restlessness like a mirror of the protagonists, are later transformed into chine more decisive and realisticthrough which the author captures more details, the physicality of the characters, theirs walk more confidently towards the conclusion. Despite Milligan’s story, it’s hard not to believe his words: Enigma it just seems to delineate that self-awareness which Michael gradually acquires and which allows him to find the answers he is looking for, through tables that gradually become less chaotic, put the details in their place and become clearer.
The evolution of Duncan Fegredo in Enigma is evident also thanks to the numerous final sketches, where the composition of the scripts shows the gradual development of the illustrations: a more than welcome addition that gives authenticity to the construction of this comic series making progress and growth visible. To crown the closing of the volume, the beautiful, dreamlike and psychedelic covers of the various issues of the Vertigo publications. The current cover is definitely more minimalbut it always remains elegant and refined: it is not made with a material destined to last, but with the usual “gummed cardboard” and soft that reveals marks and scratches in no time at all (especially on the chosen white color), however it represents an excellent graphic realization, both in the choice of the illustration (chaotic but fine, bizarre but evocative), and in that of the font.
